


Fifteen Nights

by Jemisard



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 09:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19196539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemisard/pseuds/Jemisard
Summary: Ben doesn't appear on the first night, the one after the mission that went so wrong... Klaus keeps waiting for him anyway.





	Fifteen Nights

Ben didn't appear the first night.

Klaus looked for him. He tried to call out, reach to him, do _something_ to pull Ben to him, to know that he wasn't just _gone_.

He fell asleep, exhausted, somewhere around four in the morning, face wet with tears and skin still tacky with the mess of combat.

He woke up when Diego came in and shoved him until he moved enough to let his brother squeeze on with him. Diego didn't say anything, didn't even hug Klaus, just lay there back to back with him until they both fell asleep again.

Klaus woke up in the afternoon with Diego gone and the sounds of silence pressing into the academy. He wandered through until he found Vanya in the kitchen.

"Pogo and Mom made Father give us a day off. Because-" She looked down and there was sadness but it was distant. "Have you seen him?"

Klaus shook his head. "I tried. All night."

"It's okay," Vanya promised. "I know you did. He'll come through."

"What if he can't? What if the things took him?" Klaus bit at his thumb pad. "You know what I mean. The-"

"I know what you mean. But Ben's not like that. He wouldn't just let them have him."

"You weren't there! You didn't see..." Klaus hiccupped on his breath, hands smothering down the sob that wanted to vent itself. 

"I didn't choose not to see it, Klaus," Vanya said, her voice whisper soft. "Ben'll come, Klaus, I'm sure of it. He's going to come and make sure you're okay, because that's _Ben_."

Klaus nodded and desperately wanted her to be right.

###

One night became two, became a week, became two weeks and Klaus still didn't see Ben.

Father, in a great show of tact and compassion, forced the four surviving members of the Umbrella Academy to sit for another of his stupid portraits before they'd even finished ordering Ben's headstone.

Klaus was forced into compliance by Luther's menaces, but he made sure his displeasure was known, refusing to look at the other three or the camera. The photo would be copied into another hideous team painting to adorn the walls and cram the reminder of Ben's death down their throats.

The only real surprise was that Sir Reggie hadn't already commissioned a painting of Ben to hang up with Five's, but maybe Ben's death wasn't worth it to him, whereas Five's disappearance had to be constantly remembered, the price of disobedience.

When the fifteenth night passed without any sign of Ben returning to him, Klaus decided he'd had enough. He was sixteen, he had watched the only brother he liked die in a way that would haunt him until his dying day and maybe beyond and their 'family' was fracturing further and further apart.

The statue was the final straw.

It wasn't the Ben Klaus knew. It was a sad, subdued Ben, the Ben who went on missions, weighed with the inevitability of calling on the power he hated. It was the Ben their Father thought was the real Ben, when really, it was Six, Father's Number Six, but it wasn't _Ben_.

Klaus had stared at it for a long moment, unable to see anything of his brother in it, and walked away, despite Luther's shouting, despite Father's demands.

Vanya appeared in his doorway while he was throwing clothes into a bag. "You're running away."

"No." He pointed at her. "I'm not running away. I'm _leaving_. It's not the same. Running away implies coming back, which I'm not, because I'm done. This place is a fucking mausoleum, Vanya. I should know! Sir Reggie keeps locking me in them!"

He kept shoving things into his bags while Vanya stood and silently watched him.

"Father will be angry."

"Father can suck a goat's ass." He pointed towards the courtyard. "Did you _see_ it, Van? Did you see that thing he had made, like Ben's some sad, lost soul that was martyred to some great cause and he's not! He's dead because of Reggie and Luther! He's dead because of this stupid academy and I'm not going to hang around until it gets me too!" He hefted the bag up on his shoulder. "Help me steal Allison's black pumps, I need something to wear on nights out."

"No!" Vanya looked scandalised. "You can't just steal Allison's shoes. Anyway, you'll just hurt yourself like you did wearing Mom's heels."

"Mm. Your point is taken and accepted. Goodbye, sister mine, it's been shit from start to finish." He air kissed Vanya and breezed past her.

"Klaus! Klaus! Four!" She clung to the doorway, calling after him, but she didn't try and follow. She never tried to follow anymore.

Klaus went and partied.

Klaus drank like he might never drink again and took the joint when it was offered and eventually, the hauntings faded away into the background and it became silent in his mind while all around him, music thumped and people shouted and screamed and laughed. Somewhere between the neck of a bottle of vodka and the too bright, white porcelain of the toilet there was a warm body and hot mouth and Klaus learned how much sensation his body could experience when he let it, when he let go and Four vanished and Klaus vanished and-

And he had never felt so terrible in his life, and that included after he spent three days locked in the crypt with a bunch of freshly acquired and highly distressed cadavers.

He rolled off the couch and drank the water someone had left sitting on the coffee table. There was a dark figure standing at the bookcase, so Klaus waved the glass toward them. "Person. Water? Aspirin? Hair of the dog?"

"I don't think hair of the dog is going to help, Klaus."

Klaus' head snapped up and he took in the small form, the black coat that Sir Reggie had indulged because of clever reasoning, the hood up like it might protect the face underneath from the backwash- "You came!"

Ben looked around the edge of his hood with a small, tight smile. "Of course I came. I can't leave you alone, who knows what you'll get up to without me there."

Klaus hugged himself tightly, eyes closed and listening to Ben, he could almost pretend it was his brother's arms around him.


End file.
